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What should I be for Halloween?

Happy Halloween from the Science & Technology Room at Central Library! What a spooktacular time of year to make delicious treats resembling gooey brains or decrepit, dead fingers! Personally, I cannot forget the pumpkin picking, or nearly cutting off my finger trying to recreate the pumpkin carvings on Martha Stewart’s "Living" magazine cover, or, of course, the ever exciting memory of my son screaming in peril the night before Trunk or Treat, “MOM, WHAT WILL I BE FOR HALLOWEEN THIS YEAR!?!?!” This last scene haunts my dreams and is far scarier than any haunted house.

Every year I spend hours on Pinterest or YouTube trying to perfect a costume or makeup that never ends up looking quite right. Who am I kidding? I look terrible and my son looks terrible. Every. Single. Year. One year, I tried making a Peter Pan costume for my son and he ended up looking like a weird cross between Mike Wiskowski and Gumby. Who knew it was possible to fail that bad at making a kid’s costume?

This year I checked out The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Organizing Your Life by Georgene Muller Lockwood (coincidentally also in Science & Technology). I feel more prepared to tackle our costumes earlier than the night before Halloween. And, lucky for me, Science & Technology has a huge selection of costume and cosplay books! No more vague tutorials from Pinterest or overly detailed makeup videos from YouTube.

I picked up Cute and Easy Costumes for Kids by Emma Hardy because, well, my son is cute and I like the idea of easy-to-make Halloween costumes. Ultimately, my son decided he wants to be a Sith. The Sith costume was so easy to construct! My son is wearing his black jeans and a black hoodie, and black shoes underneath the hand-sewn black robe. Our whole family got involved in the lightsaber making process with dad as the engineer. The lightsaber was constructed with PVC pipe and glow-in-the-dark paint.

I decided to be a Snapchat filter complete with a flower crown and “natural dewy makeup.” Dad is going to be “me” with #nofilter, a.k.a. a blonde wig, no makeup, and identical clothing. I think we have outdone ourselves this year with inexpensive, easy, and creative costumes! Also, no one is wearing green makeup that does not wash off for 4 days so I’m going to call this a #momwin.

I consulted Dog Trick or Cat Treat by Archie Klondike to create a costume for our dog, Louis! Louis is a lion, complete with a mane. Louis is extremely unhappy about his mandatory participation in Halloween this year.

If you have more creative skills than I do, please consult Make: Props and Costume Armor by Shawn Thorsson! This book is for the real Halloween costume champions out there and I am truly in awe! Also, I’m sort of jealous. I wish I had the kind of skill and attention to detail it takes to make these awesome costumes!

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